A kindergartner at Nestor Language Academy, Violet Jaime, is taught just about everything in Spanish — reading, writing, math, music and what’s on the menu in the cafeteria. So are her classmates, a combination of English and Spanish speakers.

English instruction will gradually increase to 50 percent by fifth grade, when most Nestor students typically achieve bilingual status.

Until recently, this kind of intensive language education has been a novelty in San Diego County, one that’s been available in only a handful of public schools.

In little over a decade, the number of dual-language programs in the county has skyrocketed from nine in 2000 to 48 today — with 18 of them opening since 2009. This is one of the few areas in public education that is experiencing unprecedented growth amid California’s relentless fiscal crisis, which has forced sweeping cuts in schools throughout the county and state.

The boom in language schools is meeting increasing demands of parents who want their children prepared for top colleges, promising careers and a global society.

Or, in Violet’s words, “It is good because when you go to places you will know how to say hello and goodbye to the people in those places. You could even live in those places if you know how to talk to the people.”

Dual immersion

The majority of language schools in this border region — and statewide — feature Spanish language instruction in a dual-immersion style that puts English speakers alongside native speakers. Mandarin programs are on the rise, a trend that could prepare a new generation of Americans for a projected shift in the global economy that puts China ahead of U.S. by 2025.

In dual-immersion programs, Spanish speakers benefit from learning the basics in their native language, research shows. At the same time, English speakers get the opportunity to learn another language with help from their teacher and their Spanish-speaking classmates.

Because English speakers generally take a couple of years to acclimate to instruction in a foreign language, test scores for language schools tend to lag in the early years. Nestor’s state test scores fall behind the South Bay Union School District in second and third grades, but students catch up and then outperform their counterparts in the district by the time they reach fourth grade.

For example, last year 50 percent of Nestor’s second-graders scored proficient or advanced on state math tests, compared to 60 percent of students in the district. In third grade, 59 percent of Nestor’s students reached that mark compared to 63 percent districtwide. In fourth-grade, 73 percent of Nestor’s students scored proficient or better, compared to 64 percent districtwide. By fifth grade, 70 percent of Nestor’s students scored proficient or better, compared to 56 percent of students districtwide.

Single-immersion language schools in the county schools target only English-speaking students. In addition to Spanish, San Diego has French and German immersion schools. Two public Mandarin Chinese schools opened in 2010. Plans for new language schools are in the works, including one that would teach Hebrew.

A fairly inexpensive boost

Establishing language programs is a relatively inexpensive endeavor that can revive schools with dropping enrollment, said Randy Ward, superintendent of the San Diego County Office of Education. More importantly, language schools give parents what they want and students what they need.

“Parents want their kids to have the chance to learn another language, and they don’t want to have to go to a $25,000-a-year private school to get it,” Ward said. “What comes with learning another language is analytical thinking, collaboration, problem-solving skills and the understanding that you have to be able to adapt and be flexible.”

This new rash of language schools also represents the new face of bilingual education, said Julie Sugarman, who studies language schools at the Center for Applied Linguistics, a research center in Washington, D.C.

“Used to be you had these immigrant students that came here and we would take their language away from them and then we would make them learn it in high school — it was ridiculous,” Sugarman said. “The atmosphere in California got very chilly regarding bilingual education. Now it’s starting to change.”

For years, bilingual education was caught up in the debate over immigration in California. Many perceived it to be a crutch for native Spanish speakers, a public investment that critics said rarely paid off and often left students unable to master English or Spanish.

California voters approved a ballot measure in 1998 to all but ban bilingual education. Promoted by Silicon Valley businessman Ron Unz, Proposition 227 led to the demise of most bilingual education programs.

Parents can request a waiver to the law that bans most non-English instruction in schools. However, less than a third of English-language learners have requested bilingual services, according to the California Department of Education. The law allows for charter-school language academies.

The majority of native Spanish speakers learn “overwhelmingly in English,” under the Unz law, yet the achievement gap between English learners and their fluent counterparts continues.

Research has shown that students who learn the three R’s in their native language perform better than those who are thrust into English-only classrooms.

“We have a lot to prove”

The county Office of Education offers training and staff development for educators at dual-language schools that attracts participants from throughout the state. Last year, 204 educators from attended sessions. That’s up from the 182 educators who attended workshops the prior year.

Last week, educators from San Francisco, Kern County and elsewhere visited Nestor for a series of workshops and a tour of one the county’s oldest two-way immersion programs, which started with four classes in 1996.

As Nora Tapia, the principal of Delano’s first dual-language school, toured the campus, she collected ideas she would take home. She is still trying to win over skeptics in Kern County’s conservative ranching community.

“We have a lot to prove,” Tapia said. “There are a lot of skeptics, a lot of people — Spanish speakers and English speakers — who could not understand why you would want to teach in Spanish in this country.”

Educators in Lakeside had to overcome similar skepticism when they converted Riverview Elementary School into a language program — starting in 2006 with Spanish instruction. The school added Mandarin enrichment lessons in 2008 and opened a full-fledged Mandarin immersion program in 2010 that features Spanish as an enrichment language.

“There was a group that thought, why would you want to teach kids in Spanish — this is America,” said Tina Brady, assistant superintendent at the Lakeside School District. “Now, we have waiting lists to get in.”

Since it converted to a language school, Riverview’s enrollment has gone from under 300 to 667. The school’s Academic Performance Index of 859 is the highest in the district.

Riverview quickly won over the community and appeals to families throughout Lakeside and as far away as Temecula, Del Mar and Poway.

Riverview’s original program immerses English speakers in Spanish, gradually increasing English instruction. Students get Mandarin as an enrichment language. Four years ago, the school started a charter program on campus that immerses students in Mandarin, with Spanish as the enrichment program. The school relies so much on technology — iPods, iPads and interactive computer boards — that educators refer to it as the “fifth language.”

“I can order food at a Chinese restaurant,” said Leah, a second-grader at Riverview. “People are always surprised.”

The county superintendent, who lives in Del Mar, put his own two children in Riverview.

“I remember taking my daughter to her first day of kindergarten and the teacher only spoke in Spanish. My daughter had this look on her face that said, ‘Daddy don’t leave me here, I don’t understand anything,’ ” Ward recalled. “Now she read and writes and sings in Spanish.”